


Captain America Redux

by thatonedudewiththename (orphan_account)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 2003), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Avengers AU, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, No age-up, No pairings - Freeform, PTSD, TMNT AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-21
Updated: 2014-12-21
Packaged: 2018-03-02 14:53:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2816153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/thatonedudewiththename
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if the turtles had been Captain America and the Howling Commandos?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Captain America Redux

**Author's Note:**

> This is gonna ruin my fucking life. AS IF TWS AND TMNT 2003 WERENT SAD ENOUGH ALREADY.

Icy ground was quickly approaching; it took up the entire window which took up the entirety of the front of the Hydra plane. Leonardo- bloody, bruised, his red, white, and blue uniform dirty and ripped in a couple places- turned to the brother he was about to die with. "Well, Raph," He smiled a little, "we always knew we'd go out young. "  
Raphael, his suit identical to Leo's but much darker in colour, moved closer to him and placed his hand on his. "Yeah, but who woulda thought it'd be like this?"  
Leo nodded, looking back to the window, Raph doing the same.

Seconds later, they hit.

+

Ok, now, Raph wasn't sure what the afterlife was like, but he was pretty sure a bedroom that looked exactly like one from the 40's wasn't it. He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, finding that he was wearing socks, which was pretty uncomfortable- he never liked socks, so he took them off and tossed them aside, near his bedside stand, upon which laid his mask- he took that up and put it on. Behind him, a radio played a baseball game, and next to it a window that looked out into the streets of New York City, circa 1945, and underneath that was another bed, in which laid his brother Leo, still asleep. Raph leapt off his bed and over to him, gently placing his hands on Leo's arm. "Leonardo? Leo?" He called. "Bro?"  
Leo frowned, grumbling, stirring, turning over onto his shell and blearily opening his eyes. They looked around unfocused before landing on the masked face of his brother. He frowned and sat up. "Raph...?" He mumbled.  
"Yea. You okay?"  
"I think so..." Leonardo stood up, using his nightstand as support, finding his mask there.  
"Here, let me." Raph grabbed the mask and tied it around Leo's head, hearing the door open behind them.  
"Ah, you're awake." A female voice said. Turning around, Leo and Raph found the owner of the voice to be a young woman in 40's businesswoman clothes, only there was something off: her bra was... not right. Her breasts weren't pointy triangles as would be typical of a woman from the 40's. Nextly, her hair- not up in a bun or in tight curls, one of the popular styles of the time. And her tie was a wide man's tie, not a lady's.   
Both Leo and Raph noticed these things and immediately knew something was not right, so, carefully, they took a couple steps back from the woman. "Where are we?" Leo asked.  
"A recovery room in New York City."  
Raph narrowed his eyes at her. "Where are we, _really?"_  
She appeared confused. "I'm not sure what you mean."  
Leo cut in. "That baseball game on the radio, it's from May 19th, 1943."  
The woman furrowed her brows just slightly.  
"I know because we were there."  
At this point, Raph stepped forward, muscles tensing and a hard look on his face. "Now, tell us where the hell we are!"  
The woman's expression became frightened, and she took a couple steps back. Distantly, Raph heard the low beep of a button and did a blinding 180-turn, he charging through the back wall with ease, Leo running after him, hearing the woman say, "We have a code red!"  
Meanwhile, Raph and Leo had busted through multiple doors and were now running down hallway after hallway, leaping down multiple stairways until they reached the ground floor, Many people in suits or guard uniforms tried to stop them as the two turtles made for the glass double doors, but they were pushed aside easily. Raphael made it outside seconds before Leonardo, and was met with so much blaring noise and so many bright lights that he couldn't see straight, and, as it seemed, neither could Leo, as when he joined Raph outside he almost immediately covered his ears and bumped into his brother. "What the-? Where da hell are we?" Raph practically shouted.  
"We were going to try to break the news slowly," A male voice behind them said.  
The two brothers turned around, now speechless. A tall, black man with an eye patch dressed in all black stood before them, many agent-types with lowered guns standing around him.  
"What happened?" Leo questioned, chest heaving, uncovering his ears.  
"You've been asleep, Captain; for nearly seventy years." The man answered.  
"Jesus," Raph staggered a bit, left hand coming up to practically slap his forehead. Leo just... stood, shoulders rising and falling from the force of his breath, expression disbelieving.  
"Donnie... April..." He nearly whispered.  
Raph was shaking from his attempt to keep from punching _everything,_ instead pushing the heels of his hands so hard into his eyes he saw stars. "I can't fucking believe this." He mumbled, anger on the edges of his speech.  
The one-eyed man watched the mutants in silence, waiting for them to calm down enough so he could take them back inside.

Minutes passed. One-Eye checked his watch, decided that his charges had had enough time to get used to their predicament, and then said, "Captain, Lieutenant," he paused, signalling with his hand for the agent-types to head back to the building, "I understand that this is very traumatizing, but I need to debrief you on your situation and your future."  
Raph growled so loud that a few of the people with guns turned back. "You an' me are havin' fuckin' _words,_ you god damn eye patch wearin' son of a-"   
A single touch on the arm from Leo made Raph calm down considerably. The blue masked one stepped up to Eye Patch. "We're ready, sir."  
Eye Patch gave a nod. "Follow me to the meeting room."

The meeting room was two floors above where Raph and Leo had been held, a floor-to-ceiling tinted window running one side of the room, with glass walls on the other three sides. A long, smooth, black table with chairs surrounding it was the only decoration in the room, besides a fake potted fern in the corner. "Sit," Eye Patch directed Leo and Raph to two chairs on the end of the table and at the corner, which they sat in. A brown-haired woman in a black uniform of some kind sat at the other end of the table, a tablet like the one Donatello used to use in front of her. One-Eye turned to her. "Captain, Lieutenant; my second-in-command, Agent Hill."  
Agent Hill nodded uniformly. "Sirs, I've heard a lot about you."  
Leonardo gave a nod. "Ma'am."  
Raphael grunted something that sounded similar to "ma'am", though no one could be certain.  
"Since you may want to know, I'm Nick Fury, director of the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division; or S.H.I.E.L.D. We were founded just after you went on ice by some people you may know," Fury swiped the table and it lit up, projecting images and text into the air. He tapped once or twice at something, and it brought up six pictures. "Your Colonel, Howard Stark, Agent Peggy Carter, Master Hamato Splinter, and this woman, Doctor April O'Neil, along with her husband, Private Arnold Casey Jones."  
"Casey," Raph breathed, and Leo looked over to him, placing a hand on his.  
Fury kept his aloof demeanor. "It's not difficult to understand what we do, and I won't bore you with the details, so let's cut to the chase; I've been sent to ask you if you would work with us."  
Leo actively sneered. "You think you can just _ask_ us something like this? That you can just yank us out of the ice and expect us to go right back to... to _this?"_  
Agent Hill jumped in. "No, we don't," she turned on her tablet and tapped on the screen, swiping up to project whatever was on it into the air in replace of the pictures of S.H.I.E.L.D's founders. "Which is why we've arranged you two a place to stay, along with transportation and an income, should you say no. However-"  
"Here we go." Raph rolled his eyes.  
"-we will be keeping an eye on you. It's policy."  
Leo's eyebrows were practically quivering, as was his bottom lip, and his hands were shaking. Raph looked like he was going to explode; he dropped his head onto the table and stayed that way. "What-" Leonardo's voice cracked, so he cleared his throat and tried again. "What happened to... our brother, Donatello?"  
Agent Hill looked to her boss. "Sir?"  
Fury's face twitched. "He worked as our lead scientist at S.H.I.E.L.D, but about two years after you went under, he disappeared. He was proclaimed M.I.A."  
The sound that escaped the two mutant turtles' throats made Agent Hill cringe, although the sight and sound of Raphael throwing a chair did not. "Fuck!" He shouted, the entirety of the glass wall to his left cracking upon impact.  
"Raph," Leo reached out to his brother and softly grabbed his arm. "Please. Not here."  
Huffing, Raph slid a new chair over beside Leo and sat down. "What d'you wanna do, Leo?" He grumbled, glaring hard enough to melt lead, or maybe set a tree on fire.  
Sliding his hands over his face and rubbing his eyes under his mask, Leo shook his head and sniffed. "I don't know. I honestly don't know. I don't-" He was cut off by a sob wracking his body, causing him to cover his face and double over. "I don't know _anything!"_  
Raphael's bottom lip trembled as he moved around the edge of the rectangular table to his brother so he could embrace him. Agent Hill heard whispering, but it was too low for her to know what it was. Though, if she had to make an educated guess, it was probably something soothing. "Sir," she turned to Fury, more to escape the emotional sight on the other side of the room than to address her superior, "What should we do?"  
Fury didn't move to answer her, instead remaining standing in his spot at the head of the table. "Wait."  
Hill frowned. "... Sir?"  
"You heard me."

At the other end of the table, the crying had ceased, and Raph had given Leo some space; speaking of Leo, he was now standing, as was Raph. By how the taller and darker-skinned turtle's posture was, Hill had this weird feeling that, if given the opportunity, he would destroy everyone in the room- excluding his brother, of course. "We're sorry, but we can't take your offer, on joining S.H.I E.L.D or on the apartment." Leo said.  
"Yeah, 'cause first of all, look at us. We can't just walk around out in da open. If ya haven't noticed, we're kinda giant mutant turtles." Raph added.  
At this, Fury cleared the holograms with a swipe of his hand, taking it back to a menu-type thing, whereupon he tapped at a selection second from the top. Immediately it brought up an archive of comics, personnel files, videos, and a "Coming Soon: Captain America and the Howling Commandos Exhibit" advertisement from the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. "The world already knows you two are back, Cap. You're heroes; the discovery of you two in ice was a worldwide phenomenon."  
Leo's jaw tightened. "Well, you guys just think of everything, don't you?" He rubbed a hand over his face and sighed. "Fine, we'll take the apartment, and our weapons, if you have them, but that's it. No S.H I.E.L.D."  
Raph seemed pleased with that decision and nodded in agreement, standing close beside his brother and leader. Fury didn't bat an eye, simply pressing a finger to his ear. "This is Fury. Ready a vehicle to take the captain and his lieutenant to their new home. Oh, and get their belongings from storage." He began to walk out of the room, Hill and the turtles following behind. "Your uniforms and replicas of your weapons and shell shield have been donated to the Smithsonian Museum. I hope you boys don't mind."  
"It's not like we need 'em," Raph said, noticing Hill looking at him oddly and deeply furrowing his brows. "You _need_ somethin', Agent? Or d'ya just like lookin' at my pretty face?" He nearly sneered, balling his hands into fists.  
Hill shook her head, turning to face forward, her posture all professional. "No, sorry, Lieutenant."  
Scoffing, Raph crossed his arms.

+

Their apartment was pretty nice, not gonna lie; it was modest, with basic furniture, and pretty, pale blue walls. The furniture was modern, and their utilities in the kitchen were state-of-the-art and brand new. Down the small hallway were two bedrooms and a bathroom, though it was likely that Raph and Leo would just be using one for the time being, since the rooms were pretty big. In the living room, Raph was taking in their new digs. "What'dyou think, Leo?" He asked, hands on his hips.  
"It's fine, I suppose," Leo answered in a low voice, noticing the skateboard in the corner, making his eyes widen. His hands shook and he took a few steps back. "Get rid of it, Raph," He ordered as he turned away, covering his face. "Get it away."  
Raph saw what had made him so upset and teared up some. "Y-yeah, no... no problem, bro." He picked it up slowly and carried it to the front door, going down the stairs and out to the trash cans before gently setting it beside the recycle bin and walking back inside.

They didn't really do much for the first couple weeks; not enough talk, not enough background noise to distract from the relentless memories and thoughts bombarding their poor minds. "We can never go back," Leonardo mumbled over breakfast one morning.  
Raph looked up from pushing his cereal around his bowl. "What?"  
"We can't keep living like this, staying cooped up in here. If Master Splinter were here, he'd say the same thing."  
"Well, he ain't here, so we really don't know _what_ he'd say,"  
Leo quickly slammed his hand on the small table. "Don't... do you dare do this to me, Raphael."  
"Do WHAT, Leo?" Raph stood up so quickly his chair fell backwards onto the linoleum floor with a loud crash. "Huh? State facts? Dad's gone, bro! No sense in denyin' it! You say we can never go back? Huh? That we can't stay in here? Might as well live in the present!"  
Covering his face with his hands, Leo began to cry, doubling over in his chair. There was the sound of Raph fixing his chair and sitting back down.  
A knock at the door interrupted the heavy silence that had settled in the kitchen and between the two brothers. "I'll get it, Leo." Raph said quietly, standing up much slower this time. He wasn't sure how the person at the door was going to react to his... appearance, but he figured it'd be alright. Slowly, he unlocked the deadbolt and pulled the door open just enough to peer out; a woman in sweats with long brown hair and glasses stood outside the door, expression concerned. "Uhm, I'm sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to know if everything was alright. I heard shouting."  
Raph sighed; right, he forgot how loud he could be. "Yeah, we're fine, me 'n my bro were just discussin' stuff."  
"Oh, ok! Just wanted to make sure. Have a nice day."  
"Yeah," Raph shut the door and locked it again. Resting his forehead against the cool plywood of the white door, he sighed once more and closed his eyes. From the kitchen, he heard a chair sliding across the floor, followed by bare feet shuffling from linoleum to carpet, stopping immediately behind him. He felt hands on his shell, and then arms encircling his waist. "I'm sorry," He said, turning around in his brother's embrace to face him.   
"Me, too." Leo smiled weakly, his eyes still watery. He'd taken his mask off, Raph could see where it lay on the table beside Leo's plate of uneaten toast. Leonardo rested his forehead against Raphael's, hands ghosting over the back of the other turtle's shell as he began to cry again. Raph wrapped his arms around Leo's neck and whispered soothingly to him, some words in English, some in Japanese, until they both felt better.

They went out for ice cream later that day, disguised as best they could be considering the warm weather. About a block from the ice cream shop, they were stopped by a policeman. "Dressed kinda heavy for such a nice day," He said.  
"I guess we are." Raphael replied.  
"Watcha got under those layers, boys?"  
"That's hardly your business, sir." Leo answered. "Do you have probable cause to believe we're hiding anything _illegal_ in our coats?"  
That seemed to ruffle the officer's feathers. "You backtalkin' me, son?"  
"No, sir, I just know my rights."  
Finally, the cop's partner came out of the building the group was standing outside of, and, upon seeing the situation, moved her partner along. "C'mon, Brian, leave the men alone."  
Brian made a noise of indignance, but got into the squad car. "Sorry, gentlemen. Have a nice day," The lady cop apologized before getting into the driver's seat of the vehicle.  
"Jesus, a turtle can't walk down the street in disguise without bein' labeled a threat." Raph commented as he and Leo continued walking toward the ice cream shop.  
"He was just doing his job, Raph." Leo said, though he made a mental note to avoid main streets from now on.  
At the shop, Raph ordered a double scoop of the triple chocolate fudge while Leo got one scoop of plain vanilla. Ordinarily, Raph would make a wisecrack about his brother's favourite flavour, but he wasn't in the mood, nor did he think Leo was, either. They left the shop once they paid and made their way to Central Park a short distance away, the first scoop of Raphael's ice cream already gone by the time they got there. "This is nice," Leo said quietly, his cone mostly untouched and beginning to melt.  
Raph nodded, licking more of his dessert and getting some on his nose, "Yeah, 'cept for that ugly buildin' ova there. Who would even build that?" He motioned with his free hand to a huge skyscraper marring the skyline in the distance.  
At that, Leo let out an airy laugh. "Heh, yeah."  
For a while, they sat in silence, Raph practically inhaling his ice cream in the time it took for Leo to give his a few more light licks. When he turned to Raph, he saw his brother's face covered in sticky melted ice cream and chuckled. "Raph, your face."  
"What?" Raphael turned to face Leo, shifting on the uncomfortable bench they were sitting on.  
"You've got chocolate all over your mouth. Here," Leo took a handful of napkins out off his right jacket pocket and started to wipe at Raph's face. "How did you even get it like this?"  
"I'm an enthusiastic eater."  
"Whatever you say, Mikey."  
Microseconds after he said that, Leo froze completely, his entire body going stiff. From under his hand, Raph's face changed drastically; eyes wide, mouth slightly agape, skin going cold. His hands in his lap began to flex from fists to spread out and back again. "Leo..." He barely said.  
Leo didn't reply, the hand holding the napkins dropping the now sticky paper, allowing it to free fall to the ground below.  
"Leo," Raph persisted, "snap outta it, c'mon." Carefully, he took the other's cone and set it on the napkin it had wrapped around it, now holding both of his brother's hands in his. "Please, Leo, come out of it. Don't do this to me again!"  
In Leonardo's mind, it was 1944 again. On a mountainside in a classified part of western Europe, Captain America and the Howling Commandos were on another mission; this time, they were going after a Nazi scientist that had supposed connections to Hydra, and, in order to capture him, they needed to get on that train. The flashback was moving in slow motion at some parts and fast in others, but gods, when he was reaching for Mikey, hanging out of the side of the train, it was like time stopped completely. "LEO!" Mikey screamed, eyes wide in terror, his grip on the train slipping.  
"MIKEY! HOLD ON!" Leo could hear himself shout, his voice drowned out by the screeching of the speeding train. Just as he was about to grab his brother's gloved hand, time began to flow again, and then...  
And then Michelangelo was gone.  
He was brought back to the present by a hard slap across his face. "Leo!" Raph yelled.  
Leo held his throbbing cheek, the last fringes of the flashback fading away. "... Sorry."  
"Don't. Quit saying that." Raphael placed his hand on Leonardo's on his face, brows dipped and lips pulled into a line. "Let's go back to the apartment, OK?"  
"Yeah, I've had enough of New York for today."  
The vanilla ice cream cone was forgotten.

+

Raphael stared blankly at the two sleek, black headstones sticking out of the ground in front of him; one read "Hamato Michelangelo, Dec. 28, 1929- May 4, 1944", the other "Hamato Donatello, Dec. 28, 1929- Nov. 9, 1948". He stared at them, and continued to stare until his vision blurred over from tears. "They told me Dad is in Japan," he choked out, wincing at the loudness of his own voice, "next to Master Yoshi." Using the sleeve of his trench coat, he wiped the tears from his eyes. "Leo's here, waiting at the entrance. He uh, he wanted t'come see you guys, but..." Raph lowered and shook his head, shrugging his massive shoulders, digging at the pristine green grass with his toe. "... Couldn't make him go past the gate."  
A cold wind blew through the neatly manicured and eerily empty graveyard, rustling Raphael's black coat and the two flowers he had sticking out of one of the side pockets. As if suddenly remembering that they were there, Raph took the flora from his pocket and held them each in one hand. "I got you guys somethin'." He said, kneeling down. "Mikey, I know how much you like..." He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. _"Liked,_ sunflowers, so I uh, I got ya one." Into the flower holder the bright orange and brown flora went. Briefly, Raph caressed the slightly worn headstone over the engraving before moving on to the other. "Donnie, I gotcha a white lily, 'cause I remember ya sayin' once that you liked 'em." Gently, it was settled in the in-ground cylindrical vase, and, just like with Mikey, he touched the stone over the name.   
There he remained on his knees, covering his face, until it started to rain; he knew Leo would be worried, so he stood up and said his goodbyes before turning and walking back to the gate and the waiting car.

The three-hour ride home was silent. Being that the trip had been pretty much an all-day thing, the moment they got home, they took showers and went to bed without eating.   
At around ten later that night, Leonardo had another nightmare. He was standing in a strange mixture of the old lair and his and Raph's current apartment, only it was much colder than he remembered, and there was no one there. When he turned to the right, he could see the front door of the flat standing open, and when he turned to the left, he could see Donatello's desk chair, a hangman's noose swaying lightly above it, along with a spotlight shining down. "I'm leaving," a voice said, causing Leo to look toward the source; Raphael stood in front of the door with a duffel bag around his shoulders, brows furrowed deeply and mouth a thin line. His eyes, not covered by his mask, were cold. "You can't stop me this time."  
"Raph, please," Leo found himself saying, "just give me more time."  
"No. You had ya chance. If ya can't move on, I'm gone."   
A red length of fabric floated down from the darkness above Leo to rest at his feet- his brother's mask. "Why'd you leave me?"   
Leonardo looked from the mask to his left, where Donnie's chair was; Donatello himself was on it, holding the noose around his neck. The eyes he was so used to seeing filled with light were now hollow. "You left me to die alone, Leo. How could you?"  
"No, no, I didn't... Donnie, you have to believe me... I never..." Leo tried to walk up to him, but his feet remained planted firmly where they were.  
"Why, Leo?" At this point, the blue-masked turtle saw that there was someone behind the chair, ready to pull it out.   
"NO!" He screamed, but it was too late- the support was yanked out from under Donnie, the sound of his neck snapping echoing through the air. Laughter came from the darkness where the chair had been, followed by a green face wearing a torn blue mask poking out into the light. 

Leo was awoken by the slamming of his own heart against his ribcage and the trembling of his body, his eyes wide in the dark of his and Raphael's bedroom, hands outstretched toward the ceiling and the name _"Donnie"_ trapped in the back of his throat.   
A heavy and warm arm wrapped itself around his abdomen just as he felt the bed move from Raph himself shifting to lay on his side close to Leo. "'nother bad dream?" A sleepy voice mumbled into his left ear.  
"Y-yeah..." Leonardo answered in a broken tone, lowering his arms to his side, his right one taking the hand Raph had around him and holding it tightly.  
"'Bout what?"  
No answer; just Leo covering his face and crying. Raph merely rubbed his thumb across the back of Leo's hand and waited. The reply finally came up past Leo's phlegm-clogged and burning throat, "... You were leaving me... Don-Donnie was hanging from a noose, a-and I... I _killed_ him, pulled the chair out from under him... Raph, I-I-I-"  
"Shh, it's ova now," Raphael slipped his hand out of Leo's to cup his tear-wetted cheek, pulling him just enough to signal him to turn on his side.   
The crying mutant did so and immediately embraced him, sobbing and holding him tight. "Please... please, don't ever leave me..."  
Raphael shook his head and kissed the hand he was holding. "You know I won't."

The nightmare that Raph had had the same night was never mentioned.

+

Time passed and things got better. Although the brothers still didn't really get out much, they found things to do to occupy their time, like converting the extra bedroom into a training room and buying video games online for the gaming systems that S.H.I.E.L.D thought it necessary to include with the entertainment center (neither turtle was entirely sure how to use it, but they managed). It was during a session of Netflix surfing that Raph suddenly said, "Dude, I just realized that technically we're like, 85."  
Leo almost dropped his Playstation controller. "You're right." He near whispered.  
They stared at the Netflix search screen for a while, until there was a knock at the door. Getting up from the sofa, Raph said, "That's probably the pizza."  
"Money's on the table," Leo told him, scrolling through the movies with a now bored expression.

That was how they mostly spent their days; watching TV, playing video games, going out sightseeing at night, training- though they wouldn't use these exact words, they liked it. Life was OK.  
And then there was Loki.


End file.
